China Lifts Estimates of Chinese Muslims
In Xinjiang Trained by bin Laden's Group

By

Charles Hutzler Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Updated Nov. 12, 2001 12:01 a.m. ET

BEIJING -- China is ramping up estimates of militant Chinese Muslims being trained by Osama bin Laden's network in Afghanistan, in an apparent attempt to tie its long-running suppression of separatists in western China to the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, at a news conference ending three days of meetings in Beijing, said Friday that China's top foreign-policy official told her that 1,000 Chinese separatists have trained in Afghan bases run by Mr. bin Laden,...